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JOURNALS // Vestnik Tomskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. Matematika i Mekhanika // Archive

Vestn. Tomsk. Gos. Univ. Mat. Mekh., 2019 Number 58, Pages 5–13 (Mi vtgu695)

This article is cited in 2 papers

MATHEMATICS

On the class of two-dimensional geodesic curves in the field of the gravity force

S. O. Gladkov, S. B. Bogdanova

Moscow Aviation Institute, Department of Applied software and mathematical methods, Moscow, Russian Federation

Abstract: In this paper, without using methods of variational calculus, the problem of finding a geodesic in a curved space with respect to gravitational and dissipative forces was solved. Solving it, we use the most convenient polar coordinates $r, \varphi$. The basic assumption relies on the fact that dynamical motion equations written in curvilinear coordinates in which the Riemann curvature $R$ is different from zero rather strongly differ from similar equations in the case of a flat space.
To obtain the required equation of a geodesic arc, a contravariant vector of the velocity $\nu^i=\frac{dx^i}{dt}$ was introduced. For this vector, with regard to all active forces, the following equation was solved:
$$ \frac{d\nu^i}{dt}+\Gamma_{kl}^i\nu^k\nu^l=g^i+\frac{F^i}m, $$
$g^i$ are acceleration components of the gravitational force of the two-dimensional $r-\varphi$ space, and the dissipative force is
$$ F^i=k_1^{ik}N^k+k_2\nu^i, $$
$k_1^{ik}$ are tensor components of the dry friction, $k_2$ is the coefficient of the viscous friction, and $N^i$ are the force components.
Provided that the scalar curvature of Riemann is different from zero,
$$ R=\frac{\partial\Gamma^r_{\varphi\varphi}}{\partial r}-\frac{\partial\Gamma^{\varphi}_{r\varphi}}{\partial r}+\Gamma^r_{\varphi\varphi}\Gamma^{\varphi}_{r\varphi}-\Gamma^{\varphi}_{r\varphi}\Gamma^r_{\varphi\varphi}=\frac2{r^2}\ne0, $$
a nonlinear system of differential equations governing the required geodesic was obtained in the polar coordinates $r$ and $\varphi$:
$$ \begin{cases} \ddot{r}-r\dot{\varphi}^2=g\sin\varphi+\frac{F_{\mathrm{fr}}}{m}\cos(\alpha-\varphi),\\ r\ddot{\varphi}+3\dot{r}\dot{\varphi}=-g\cos\varphi-\frac{F_{\mathrm{fr}}}{m}\sin(\alpha-\varphi), \end{cases} $$
where $r=|\mathbf{r}|=|\mathbf{i}x+\mathbf{j}y|$ is the length of the radius-vector drawn from the origin of coordinates to the observation point $M$ lying on the geodesic line $y=y(x)$, $\varphi$ is the polar angle of the reference point, and $\alpha$ is the acute angle between the tangent drawn to the point of $M$ and to axis of abscissas.
The analytical and numerical solutions of this system in the absence of the resistance forces, i.e. $F_{fr}=0$, showed the great difference between the found geodesic and the parabola typical for the case of free fall of bodies in the gravitational field in Euclidean space.

Keywords: geodesic, Riemann tensor, dynamical equations.

UDC: 531.011

MSC: 53Z05

Received: 06.09.2018

DOI: 10.17223/19988621/58/1



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